Search results matching tag 'Sly Bailey'

Where now for Digital Britain?

2182355 — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:29:00 GMT

497 days is a long time in politics. An exceedingly long time based on Harold Wilson's time scale. But it is the length of time it has taken for the media industry to lose not one Secretary of State, but two.

James Purnell was parachuted out of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and in to the work and pensions brief to take over from the disgraced Peter Hain on 24 January, 2008.

As it happened, within the time it took Media Week to interview the then secretary of state and subsequently publish the article. Thank you Harold.

But while our timing issue was merely annoying, the current decision to flip Andy Burnham over to health and drop Ben Bradshaw into the media hot seat just ten days before the Digital Britain report is due to be published seems extraordinary. But then, we are living through extraordinary times.

Political pundits suggest if the Prime Minister survives the week, he will most likely survive until Spring next year, by which time a general election must be called. Sadly, many media companies looking to the Digital Britain report to provide a few crumbs of comfort may not be so fortunate in the survival stakes.

When Media Week interviewed communications minister Lord Stephen Carter, who is leading the Digital Britain consultation and will deliver the final report some time around 16 June, it garnered industry opinion on the interim results put out at the time.

Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey noted "the crushing lack of understanding of the urgency required for changes to merger regulations in the local and regional media sector".

Andrew Harrison, chief executive of RadioCentre emphasised the need for "legislative reform from government as an urgent priority".

And Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, stated she was pleased the pressures faced by regional media operations had "rightly moved up the Government's agenda".

But realistically, how high up the Government's agenda can Digital Britain now be?

Ben Bradshaw will no doubt be being briefed to within an inch of his life, and Carter, as an excellent operator and with his media background, is widely viewed as the right choice to deliver the plan - though how much more appealing the ITV job must look right now to him, one can only speculate.

But when your bosses are fighting for their own and the Government's future, while desperately putting together emergency legislative reform of Parliament itself, dealing with regulations surrounding media ownership and advertising would understandably take second place.

While Gordon Brown's future is looking as shaky as a number of media operations, the fact he has outlived many thousands of unfortunate commercial, creative and editorial staff who have already lost their jobs underlines the need to make good the early promise of the Digital Britain report.

In his speech at the release of the Digital Britain interim results, Brown described the event at the British Library as "what I believe is one of the most important conferences we will hold this year".

While one can only hope he meant what he said - and securing the future of the country's commercial and creative media industries is more important than who happens to be pushing through the paperwork - it is difficult to see how any reform will take place before a general election is fought and, likely, a new set of hands gets its chance to meddle.

AOP 08: Sly Bailey

2371004 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:33:00 GMT

09:45 a.m. – Sly Bailey reiterates the theme of this year’s summit: Content, convergence, and creativity. Embracing and acting on these three fundamental ideas will ensure, (at least) a chance of survival in a world where traditional media copes with a transition into the digital realm without a tested monetization structure.

Bailey said: “As media continues to fragment, our businesses will only thrive by putting ‘digital’ at its core.”

She continues that despite the doomsayers, and the lack of cheerleaders, print media will survive the economic crisis and beyond. She said “Some of you are suggesting that the days of the newspaper are ending. It is plain to see that digital media is revolutionizing the industry, but it does not mean the end of newspapers as we know them.

“I’ll say this to those writing the obituary for print media: newspapers are iconic media brands, they will still be here when the cycle turns. They are showing that brands can stretch and reach for new relationships with customers, driving new growth, but there is no doubt the growth will get harder.”

The economic downturn is now affecting digital media, growth fell in 2008 and it will be far more challenging in 2009, “even Google is not immune”. However, Bailey felt that this current crisis could be good for the industry, as a model where only the strong will survive.

There will be casualties in the coming months, she warned, but the strongest brands will survive and prosper to thrive in the world of digital media. Those that fall never had a grasp of their new environment to begin with.

Print media will survive, but what won’t will be the traditional process of newspaper publication: the five step regimen from journalist, to editor, to sub, to designer, to print.

Bailey cited changes at a number of her Trinity Mirror titles where the entire process as been uprooted and turned on its head. She suggested a centralized newsroom, with multi-platform medium, print, video, text, photographs, online, where journalists work across all titles, not just in their specialized beats.

The simplified work flow eliminates two of the steps, which means lower costs at no detriment to the editorial quality.

More importantly, the traditional relationship between the journalist and the reader is effectively dead. Journalist’s are no longer able to hash out content for a hapless audience, it’s all about interaction no.

Social networking in particular has had a role to play in triggering the changing relationship, now that the audience can interact with the journalist, they expect a different level of content, beyond the boundaries of hard news.

Lastly, (the last C) digital media will produce a larger broader canvas for creativity.

“We need to be in a perpetual state of innovation, always trying new things, whether they work or not.”

She continued: “We can keep looking back into the rear view mirror, judging today with how things use to be. Or we can look forward and be prepared to replace the obsolete process. The new digital media world is crammed with opportunities and those competent enough to grasp them will survive. Fair competition is healthy and breeds innovation.”

Impact on Press to Online Migration of a Downturn

1736064 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:36:00 GMT

Not a snappy heading is it? but here are a couple of slides that show the impact on the most mature online recruitment market (I.T.) - and maybe there are some lessons to be learnt for general market innext few years. The commentary is that as IT sites like Jobserve, Jobsite grew in late 90s - the press market grew simultaneously riding the IT boom.

Cue 2000-2001 post dot com crash, post Y2K, post establishment of Euro and 9/11. We saw slowing in growth in online and a complete car crash in press advertising. And when the market picked up again.... advertisers had looked at ROI, cost per response, were leaner with their ad budgets and we saw "hockey stick" growth in online and nothing at all in press. This will not be of great cheer to executives like Trinity Mirror's Sly Bailey who claimed recently that downturn was cyclical - by the way how in 2008 can a CEO of a big publicly listed media company say that and not be laughed off stage by city analysts.